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In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to New Mexico's environment
• opportunities to join other New Mexicans on urgent actions
• updates on the decisions that impact our environment
• resources to help you create a cleaner, greener future

Reports

In December 2015, world leaders will convene in Paris to negotiate an international agreement to address the serious threat of global warming. As the country responsible for more climate-changing pollution in the atmosphere than any other, the United States has a moral obligation to lead the world into action.

Solar energy is on the rise in the United States. At the end of the first quarter of 2015, more than 21,300 megawatts of cumulative solar electric capacity had been installed around the country, enough to power more than 4.3 million homes. The rapid growth of solar energy in the United States is the result of forward-looking policies that are helping the nation reduce its contribution to global warming and expand its use of local renewable energy sources.

Last month's Shining Cities report detailed how cities are good for solar and solar is good for cities. We've seen some impressive strides across the nation to momentously expand our solar capabilities. But we're not where we need to be yet. To obtain a clean energy future your cities and towns need to do even more. Here's how to push them in the right direction!

The use of solar power is expanding rapidly across the United States. By the end of 2014, the United States had 20,500 megawatts (MW) of cumulative solar electric capacity, enough to power four million average U.S. homes. This success is the outcome of federal, state and local programs that are working in concert to make solar power accessible to more Americans, thereby cleaning our air, protecting our health, and hedging against volatile electricity prices.

American wind power already produced enough energy in 2013 to power 15 million homes. Continued, rapid development of wind energy would allow the renewable resource to supply 30 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, providing more than enough carbon reductions to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan.